asus strix has 2 m.2 ports
(but as i mentioned before with TR boards, its not an issue- you can get one of those pci-e m.2 adapters for quite cheap for pci-e x16/8 and use it for your rest of m.2’s
it’s also a decent buy, tho it has definitly lower overclocking potential than the msi’s meg. *(tho keep in mind meg is the top mobo). In terms of phases no clue for the asus one’s. If you ask me. I would recommend going with middle options. Less junk on mobo the better. Take a look at the msi x399 gaming pro carbon vs asus strix one; and pick whichever you like more.
That particular board actually has a very good vrm aswell.
5 phases doubled to 10 using IR3599 doublers for Vcore.
And the powerstages used are the IR3555´s which are 60A powerstages.
This board is actually pretty decent vrm wise. And that board actually interests me allot personally, since its relatively cheap.
The vrm on this board is actually better then what Gigabyte comes with on their Aorus X399 Extreme board.
I could not decide I went with both… I will test them out throughout month of january and see if i am lossing anything by going with Strix.
i took two: MEG and Strix.
Ps; I only picked up Strix cause it was an open box for only 250 bucks total and MEG cause it’s everywhere out of stock and prices of both gonna be jacked up from 1st 20% due to tariffs. I have a whole month to decide if the meg will be worth paying extra 250 bucks.
I’ll probably never go 32 cores but i would like to be prepared for Zen 2 just in case it will rquire more power then 180 TDP.
its good; all of them are good at this price
You shouldn’t really care for more unless you plan to do some serious oc.
More is better
just fyi; the msi’s MEG board is top board out there. Basically a dcks out board.
In direct comparison the msi’s meg board should win hands down.
For fair comparison you should go with
Gigabyte x399 Aorus Extreme
Asus ROG Zenith Extreme
Keep in mind with zen2 release they’ll likely release new mobo’s to go with them… so yeah keep that in mind.
Nope 8 phases for vcore. +3 phases for soc.
I’m not sure which particular powerstages they went to use on the X399 E strix.
But i guess probablly IR3555´s just like the Zenith for vcore.
On the soc rail they use weaker 25A Ti nexfets.
Funny enough if you compair vrm’s on X399 boards side by side.
Then the Msi X399 MEG creation and the Msi X399 Gaming pro Carbon AC,
sofar kinda have the best vrm current capabillity wise.
Only downside for the Gaming pro carbon is that its only a 5 phase doubled.
So it has a bit more ripple to deal with then lets say the true 8 phase solutions.
But the Asus X399 Zenith Extreme has an small fan included to actively cool the vrm abit.
And definitelly helps it in terms of handling the higher demending loads for the 2970WX and 2990WX alike.
I’m still hoping that we are going to see newer x399 boards from Asus and Asrock with upgraded vrm´s.
I mean Asus uses a 10 +2 phase vrm on the X470 Hero board,
with 60A IR3555’s for god knows why?..
VRM’s are voltage regulators. - basically switches for voltage;
More vrm’s will produce a more stable/cleaner voltage power delivery, and better heat dissipation (as the there’s lot less stress and voltage passed through each one the vrm’s). It also means the CPU can draw more power when its overclocked.
The quality of vrm’s also matters a lot in it - can impact the ripple, heat, operating frequency etc. (higher op frequency on mosfets can help against ripple etc, but will generate much more heat.)
I picked both MEG and ASUS from diffrent sources and as I could not decide which one to pick.
I most probably will never go 32 cores on this motherboard anyways and will definitely skip Zen refresh 2k series.
Having said that I always though that AMD is planning to keep TR4 for the new gen Zens hence i would prefer to have better overclock and “eye” into the future possibilities.
